In 1999, the Rare Books and Special Collections Department of the Countway Library assumed custodial responsibility for the
Warren Anatomical Museum. Among its holdings is the skull of
Phineas Gage, whose life after a traumatic brain injury contributed significantly to medical science. The department was renamed the
Center for the History of Medicine in 2004. , however, exhibits are closed while the Library undergoes a renovation; the building is slated to reopen in 2021. According to the History of Medicine Division of the
National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine, The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine is the "largest academic medical library in the world, and its collections, which have been formed over nearly two centuries, sometimes through the medical holdings of other libraries, include rare and historical materials that can be numbered among the largest in the world." The
New England Journal of Medicine noted that The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine loaned out material from the 19th century in order to make the 2010 electronic-conversion possible, as paper copies of some issues of the
Journal were found missing from their own archive. As of March 3, 2022, the BML ended the partnership with the Harvard Medical Library. BML collections were removed from the Countway Library. The BML announced a future partnership with
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. ==Collections==